I've written before, agreeing with Jesse Stommel and others, that the term "ungrading" has in some ways become a barrier to doing the work it's meant to convey. In some cases it's been listed as practice that is a checklist, divorced from the context and intent.
Ungrading to me is about creating the best environment for students to learn and this encompasses a lot of things not explicitly about a grade on an assignment. For me this is about not having an attendance policy so students can make their own, adult decisions about class, and not punishing them (especially during a pandemic, but all the time) for things beyond their control like family issues, illness, work hours, commute, no money for gas. For me it is about no deadlines, no penalty for late work, telling students I trust them to get the work in when they can, while explaining when and where deadlines can help, and what they can help with. It also means building in space for students to share and present work in the way that works for them, whether that's an in-person conference or emailing work with a reflection.
It's about letting students revise work if they want to master a concept or fix something they missed, or revise something they felt rushed about but it also means telling them that it's fine if they don't, to prioritize other things, to choose not to. It's about scanning my notes and making them available to them, as well as hyperlinking all the resources I use on our live Google Doc syllabus. It's about building classes that I am transparent about why we're doing what we're doing, why I did things this way, and admitting when something isn't working and course correcting. It means letting students choose their own topics for assignments and projects. It means creating a space where they can work, ask questions, have time, reflect.
It's about showing students from day one, with every part of my class, that I value them, the work they do, and the content we'll cover. It also means that I tell students why I don't use rubrics, why I care more about what they learn, the growth they make in class, not measuring every student against the same ruller when none of them come in with the same skills or interests. It means seeing my students as individuals.
There are no gotchas in my class, I don't say one thing and do another. One of the first things my students do is annotate my Google Doc syllabus, make comments, ask questions. The course policies are clear and students say again and again that the syllabus/guidelines ensure they know exactly what the course is.
It means being very clear with my students about the long list of policing nonsense I just don't care about. For me it also means doing check ins with my students, seeing how they are, what they need help with, both in exit tickets and every 3-4 weeks in surveys.
When I talk to others about this I've encountered the same reaction. The first is, I never thought about how course policies and approaches do the work of ungrading. The second is usually a recognition that they're probably already doing a lot of this. This in turn usually turns into realizing that "ungrading" is not some huge monolith project that you either have to jump off a cliff for or not. Ungrading can start with class policies, conversations with students, and honestly, for those starting, this is my recommendation. Once you've established that environment and laid the groundwork, the other stuff is easier. You can start with one assignment. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can, and I encourage you to, tell students it's an experiment, you want to try X to address Y, come up with some goals together. I think a lot of the "proof is in the pudding" is in assignment design and student choice.
After this you can work ungrading into your classes in lots of smaller ways. Grade things as complete or incomplete, and emphasize feedback. Especially in online classes I always have a doc called "assignment starters" where I have general feedback for assignments- what I was looking for, what the assignment emphasized, common errors, then I can copy and paste this, then add specific feedback.
I teach mostly General Education classes of 20-35, online classes of 40. I've done all this at one point or another with them all. For the face to face classes one of the biggest things is making time for students to work in class. They have time to work, I walk around. I look at screens, correct if I see them applying something wrong, praise cool things, ask them how they are. I'm like a freaking shark circling my room, again, and again, and again. The whole 50 or 70 minutes. It's not excited. But it is good pedagogy. It means that students don't have to ask questions out loud to a whole class, they just have to wait for my circling to reach them. It means they get real comfortable real quick with showing me work, asking for feedback. Because they sit at conference tables, they learn to work with their seatmates, even if they weren't friends at the start of class, asking them to look at things, asking questions. For me this in class time is key because if they're working at home and need something, have questions, there's no help. I not only answer content questions but show them how to use computer tools, choose a program, take screenshots, hyperlink, find citation information. It's one-on-one time. It means that every student gets the help they need for where they are. Students listen to music, watch videos, whatever they like as they work as long as it's not disruptive to others. This means too that I have time to notice when students seem tired, not focused, and I can ask them how they are. Tell them to go home to sleep. It means putting students above the content.
This setup is also an accurate reflection of my class. I don't lecture much. I provide guidelines for assignments, the minimum requirements, but the rest is all them. Even for my themed classes, I tell them that just means that the models, the readings will be themed, they can choose whatever topic they want for their work. I tell them to choose something they'll be interested in, use programs they feel good about. Because I spend so much time walking around, listening and watching, I can see what students do, what one student went above and beyond on, what one struggled with but made real progress. The feedback they get, the encouragement, is then based on that. Each student on their own growth and learning.
Try grade conferencing where students present their work, reflect on the process, tell you what they learned and how it fits the genre, topic, guidelines. If you have course SLOs, talk with students about what each piece means, looks like, at the end of modules talk about what you all did that would be artifacts of that. Think about a final portfolio students build to all semester, a collection of assignments, artifacts, projects that show this.
Over the last six years I've done a bunch of different variations of "ungrading." Some things I keep like the surveys, check-ins, conferences. Some classes I've just done a final portfolio, students determine grade. Others I've done "practice" assignments as INC/COM with a focus on feedback, and bigger projects with grade conferencing. Online only classes tend to not do as well (based on emails, evals, surveys) with the just one portfolio at the end. Face to face classes go back and forth about grade based on fewer assignments, even if they're the ones determining/arguing/conferencing for the grade. Based on student input of changed back and forth during the pandemic based on what they tell me created stress or anxiety and what helped.
"Ungrading" isn't just not assigning grades. It is about designing your general class environment so the majority of students can succeed. It means building in space and time for students to learn that you do not control. It means trusting students to make their own decisions. It means creating policies that counter ableist, racist, classist structures. It means leaving your ego out of it. It means asking your students questions, listening to their answers, and creating space to make changes based on what they say. Ungrading is an approach to creating a more equitable learning environment, and that is a lot of things.
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